INFO:

CONTACT:

Site Resources:

Fun Stuff:

11/20/2009

We got our hands on an advanced copy of the new far-right "manifesto." Check out the blatant attempt to hijack in morality and civil rights in America, while still retaining tax-exempt status:

Preamble

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.

Declaration

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.

****

LifeSo God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro-abortion ideology prevails today in our government. The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the “need” for abortion—a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as “the culture of death.” We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.

A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called “therapeutic cloning.” This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of “liberty,” “autonomy,” and “choice.”

We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.

A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.

Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.

MarriageThe man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24

This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33

In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society—indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as “holy matrimony” to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.

Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits—the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling—and alarming—indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society—and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average—is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.

We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.

To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.

The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.

We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God’s intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to “a more excellent way.” As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.

We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being—the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual—on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.

We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being “married.” It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.

No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality—a covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as “marriages” sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.

And so it is out of love (not “animus”) and prudent concern for the common good (not “prejudice”), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God’s creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.

Religious LibertyThe Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21

The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: “Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness..., for compulsion is no attribute of God” (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God—a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.

Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.

It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.

We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital “civil unions” scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.

In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one’s own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of. Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.

As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust—and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust—undermine the common good, rather than serve it.

Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.

Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.

FIRST THOUGHT: How blatantly obvious is their tactic of mentioning polyamory whenever they mention same-sex unions? They have framed it as if the two concepts are one and the same, for obvious tactical reasons. But honestly, we'd argue that this actually does damage to their cause, as the vast majority of Americans have zero trouble seeing the flaw in the logic.

SECOND THOUGHT: It is "out of love (not “animus”) and prudent concern for the common good (not “prejudice”)" that these folks use their personal faith to oppose our civil marriages? Well sure, in the confines of the false reality that far-right evangelicals create through their talking points. But here in real world, where we gay, tax-paying couples are constantly denied at the hand of bias, the animus and prejudice are not only present: They are drippingly prevalent!

THIRD THOUGHT: This has to be one of the most poorly constructed sentences of all time:

"It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife."

Poor in terms of syntax. Poor in terms of its taxing myopia regarding 'sin'.

FOURTH THOUGHT: Their repeated misrepresentation of the New Jersey situation is galling! They say:

"In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital “civil unions” scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions."

But the reality is that the church pavilion was receiving a SPECIAL tax benefit under the Green Acres tax-exemption. This tax break was always a bonus -- a privilege bestowed upon eligible non-profits that open their private lands and/or accommodations up for public usage. That means ALL of the public, not some. LGBT people are part of New Jersey's public -- A PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION MUST REALIZE THIS OR STOP RECEIVING THESE KINDS OF PUBLIC HANDOUTS!

A church can ABSOLUTELY keep gay couples from marrying in their pavilion. However, they cannot receive state, federal, and local breaks if they are going to pick and choose which kinds of couples are allowed to use the pavilion! In this NJ case, they still received the tax-exemption for the rest of their properties, which weren't found to be in violation. But the pavilion in question was acting outside the rules for this particular state program.

FIFTH THOUGHT: Why are they not seeking a constitutional ban on divorce and out-of-wedlock birth? They seem to place those above, or at least in the same place of priority as, same-sex marriage. So if they are as truly committed to their principles as they claim, where the hell are their attempts to foist their faith views into these civil arenas? We want to see the Federal Anti-Divorce and Federal Chastity-Belt-Until-Marriage Amendments!

Your thoughts

Forwarded for 'professional' advice. Will share.

Posted by: LOrion | Nov 20, 2009 12:05:48 PM

Wow, the heterosexist manifesto - all in one place! So convenient.

Posted by: DN | Nov 20, 2009 12:18:03 PM

These "religious leaders" have come out foursquare against the Constitution with this manifesto supporting bigotry and discrimination. No one doubts their rights to believe anything they want within the framework of their relgious lifestyle choices, but they go beyond that to declare that all those who disagree with those lifestyle choices must nonetheless a) live under their rules and b) consider those religious lifestyle choices as superior to any others. These are anti-American sentiments.

Posted by: CPT_Doom | Nov 20, 2009 12:48:18 PM

It should have started "PRE RAMBLE". No Mention of how the Church forced Non Christians to convert at the edge of a Sword. No mention of Leviticus 21:14

"A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife".

How many countless marriages and re-marriages have there been? All virgins? Non Widows? This too is in the "Word of God". How convenient for the Church to pick and choose. I am a lay person. Whats their excuse?

As for the statement that "No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage". How ignorant! Had these individuals not been so hasty and blinded by homophobia they would have seen that comment for what it is. Last time I looked, The Government grants CIVIL marriage. A CIVIL marriage is RECOGNIZED AND LEGAL by Governmental law! Which MAKES IT A MARRIAGE. Legally binding, to be treated as a marriage. We the LGBT community have a right to a civil marriage, and have it we will!

As for "the cases of Aids that could have been preventable" So true. How many DEATHS would have been prevented, if not for the brainwashing and edict of the Church. A simple 99 cents Condom could have saved countless lives.

Lastly, why the "Hollier than though" attitude? The facade that every marriage is " so blessed by God " in its purity. Oh brother, please! We all know that most marriages AND relationships are HARD work. Lets not fool ourselves. The " PROTECT MARRIAGE" Chant is growing old. If marriage is so "HIGHLY SANCTIONED" why not LET Priests and other clergy get married? after all...GOD PUT US ALL ON EARTH TO "MULIPLY AND BE FRUITFUL...DIDN'T HE?" Oh...BUT NOT PREISTS. LOL!

The Catholic Church has paid Millions upon Millions to the Sexual abuse victims of the Church! 3.9 Million alone in one Chicago case: http://bit.ly/67RPM4 Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" something the Catholic church has learned well.

How well is it for NEW SINS to be added upon proclamation of the Pope, but the centuries old bibical teachings,worn and outdated must remain. Interpreted by the Church as often as needed.

Where is the Voice of the Pope,The New's, Pres. Barrack Obama, Republicans and Democrats alike, when an LGBT Teen is dismembered,decapitated and burned? Where is the outcry? The condolences? The Compassion?

That is why we will continue to fight until we too can egage in "HOLY MATRIMONY". Maybe not in the Church's eye but in the eyes of the one's we love.

www.Twitter.com/TweetwithStone

Regarding their religious liberties and non-discrimination laws, those rules have recognized religious and racial non-discrimination since the 1960's. How, pray tell, can it be acceptable for Christians to employ people who reject Jesus as their savior, but unacceptable to hire the openly gay. How is homosexuality a greater sin than rejecting Jesus?! How did the Mormon Church survive in the 1970's, while claiming that African Americans were, by definition, rejected by God, and yet forced to hire them?

Somehow, they've mysteriously gotten past these hurdles without any harm, but health insurance for a gay person? That would be a sin!

Posted by: Dave | Nov 20, 2009 1:16:15 PM

It's enough to make this pacifist Franciscan want to bitch-slap someone.

"No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential."

Welll better go reverse Loving V. Virginia. Turns out the law can't define marriage, so its still between people of the same race!

Posted by: wackadoodle | Nov 20, 2009 2:02:32 PM

"Churches" who insist in meddling in politics MUST either SHUT-UP or PAY UP!

taxthechurches.org

Posted by: kladinvt | Nov 20, 2009 2:19:51 PM

I agree they have shown they don't deserve a federal tax break. Many people have been calling for the end of tax-exempt status for churches that cross the line; in my blog I call for the removal of a blanket tax exemption for any and all non-profits.

They should be taxed on all income unless it is used for 'reasonable expenses' (not exorbitant exec pay and perks) or spent on works that actually benefit society; political contributions and lobbyist fees are neither.

Exactly Dave - apparently gays and lesbians are worse than adulterers, fornicators, heretics and blasphemers. That's new theology to me, because I thought any sex outside of "Christian" marriage and rejecting the one true church (however defined) were mortal sins.

Posted by: CPT_Doom | Nov 20, 2009 2:51:02 PM

I just hope all these Religious leaders glass houses are fully clean. You know there are going to be a HUGE hunt checking everyone person on this list for hypocrisies.

Posted by: DairyQueen | Nov 20, 2009 3:31:25 PM

Its funny that when so-called christians (as i now ALWAYS refer to them as) speak of the Sanctity of MArriage, they always leave this little tidbit out, Leviticus 20:10 (NKJV) 'The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.
Man wouldn't this solve A LOT of our problems!

Posted by: Mdoutloud | Nov 20, 2009 3:33:42 PM

My take on this is different.

I see this as an attack less on gay people (we are just the tool) but an attack on moderate and liberal Christianity.

See my (rather lengthy) commentary at Box Turtle Bulletin

Timothy: Yea, me too, actually. If I was weighing in on this as Jeremy the pragmatic progressive who's focused on a wider array of issues rather than as Jeremy the writer of G-A-Y, I'd certainly address the LGBT issues as just one component. The attack is much larger.

Thanks for your link. You know I'm a big fan of your commentary!

The last "manifesto" that I read was the Unibomber's! And, quite frankly, his (by comparison) seemed more sane, coherent, and better constructed. Of course, we know that his "manifesto" was used to justify his particular psychosis, and it is also pretty evident that this one is for exactly that same purpose. These guys know that it is looking like ENDA will finally add LGBTs to the EEOC list of protected minorities (of which, religion is already included), and they are hellbent on ensuring that it doesn't pass. Of course, they can sign all of the "manifestos" that they want, but unless they can get the votes in Congress, it's pretty certain that their pontification won't matter.

But, these guys are getting more and more desperate. Schaefer (on Maddow a couple of days ago) pointed out that their rhetoric is tending more and more toward incitement... and I would suspect that the more rights that we (as a group) are granted by this Congress, the more vicious and vitriolic and inciteful they will become.

These are truly exciting times, and there are many reasons for us to be very hopeful, but we need to be vigilant because these guys are going to get much more hateful and spiteful as their stranglehold becomes weaker. We know how much they hate us and this President, but as far as targets go, we are much accessible.

Posted by: Dick Mills | Nov 20, 2009 7:59:37 PM

I do not want to live in a Theocracy. No, no, no. And until I do, churches that interfere with politics should be taxed. I don't think "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is unclear.

@DairyQueen: I love the way you think.

Posted by: Em | Nov 20, 2009 8:23:58 PM

It should be lost on no one that there is no commitment to non-violence in the document just as there is no call for democratic debate, religious dialogue, sympathy, empathy or understanding. These people are certain they speak for the one sovereign God. With billions of dollars and fundamental certitude, and instances of domestic violence and acts of terror on their record, America should indeed wake up to the dangers of the culture wars and the growing threats within our own cherished institutions of freedom of religion and speech.

Posted by: revtj | Nov 20, 2009 9:09:23 PM

As a Christian gay man, I rebuke them in the name of Christ.

"Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matthew 12:33-37)

Posted by: Michael | Nov 20, 2009 9:27:00 PM

I find the term "fashionable ideologies" so incredibly offense on so many levels, and I'm not even gay. These people spend so much of their lives trying to dehumanize the lives of others. I could never imagine looking at my gay friends and thinking their lives/loves were the equivilent to the skinny jean trend or work shorts.

I love that they drop the fact that infidelity and divorce are "also" killers of "traditional marriage"...yet I don't see anyone, not one single Evangelical, Catholic or Orthodox anything petitioning for laws to ROLL BACK DIVORCE. Wanna know why? Because someday, maybe, just maybe, they might need that right. And far be it for them to strip themselves of their own rights.

Good lord, these people are taking credit for everything right up to the joy of watching a kitten play with a ball of string. How self righteous and egotistical can you get? Do they forget that while Christians were apparently laying the foundations of and demanding a democracy with a fair legal system, the other Christians in America were HANGING PEOPLE because they were accused of being unchristianly and witches?

I can't. I can't even deal with these people. Their stupidity is too profound for me to even try to get a grasp on. There is nothing else to call it other than repetative brainwashing. These people have had these bullshit ideas shoved so deep in their brain, that they can't grasp the fact that none of if, NONE OF IT makes ANY SENSE. That their own hypocrisies are so God damn balatant that I wouldn't trust an Evangelical Christian selling me a GIRLSCOUT COOKIE, because I'd probably end up with an Oreo.

With people like this, it's the blind leading the moronically stupid. There's no winning. As sad and horrible as it sounds, it's a matter of breeding these fucktards out, just like racism. The more generations to come, the more impossible it will be to hold onto such hypocritical and selfish ideologies.

Posted by: Stef | Nov 20, 2009 10:29:56 PM

I counted eight women on that list. That summit was a total sausage fest. Hands up if you think they got into the sacramental wine and did some hands-laying after hours.

(Sorry, I know ad hominem attacks are gauche, I just couldn't help it.)

Posted by: CWM | Nov 21, 2009 1:23:56 AM

"After the judicial imposition of “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching."

Horseshit. Catholic Charities in Boston had a history going back to 1972 of placing the children no one else wanted with even gay couples who were ready and willing to open their hearts and homes to any child who needed them. Because Catholic Charities didn't discriminate, they were able to receive Massachusetts taxpayer money as subsidies for the adoption program, and also qualified for philanthropic org money such as United Way. The key here is that by receiving those monies, Catholic Charities had to abide by non-discrimination policies. Remember, they did this LONG before marriage was even a glint in anyone's eye. Fast forward to 2004, when marriage equality in Massachusetts became reality, and bishops hoped to divert attention away from the child rapists they sheltered onto gays by telling Catholic Charities they could no longer place children with gay couples. By doing so, Catholic Charities was no loner eligible for grants from charitable orgs, or subsidies from the state, which already had a non-discrimination law in place. Catholic Charities couldn't afford to maintain the adoption program on the church pittance alone, so they shut down. (The Church was spending too much money on paying off child rape victims and terrorizing gays at the ballot box to worry about little things like needy children without homes or families.)

The takeaway from all this is that marriage equality or lack thereof never stopped Catholic Charities from placing children with gay couples. The Archbishop's tantrum did. It was easier to throw the media a parade balloon of bashing law-abiding gay couples than continue to have the world's attention on the fact that Bernard Law was trying to avoid having pay a multimillion dollar settlement to the victims of the dozens of child rapists he sheltered and gave solace and jobs to.

Christians lie. This is just another nugget in the neverending stream of poisonous, treasonous lies they tell in order to keep a hold on power and money.

Posted by: Keori | Nov 21, 2009 1:39:46 AM

Huh.... no one from Exodus signed it. Didn't get Scott Lively or any of the Phelpses either.

I wonder how tolerant they would be if a consortium of Wiccans were to band together and petition governments to support marriage for gays and lesbians?

Posted by: Lynn David | Nov 21, 2009 4:54:09 AM

Something's not quite right with Robbie George.

I suspect that the failure to pass a federal marriage amendment drove him over an edge; but that it's only now, as his descent picks up velocity and he begins to flame out, that the rest of us will begin to notice his free fall.

Already in 2003, in his WSJ Op-Ed, he characterized his political objective re marriage as a lost cause. At this point, six years later, he has begun to confuse his press conferences and manifestos and multiple websites-cum-hit-pieces-on-Kevin-Jennings for some new Council of Chalcedon.

In any case, I just wanna echo the praise for Kincaid's commentary at BTB; it's spot on (both the praise and TK's take on what a post-MD future holds):

"But what I think we can anticipate, based on their conclusion, is a concerted effort at political stuntery. A dedication to dishonesty. And an ongoing campaign of lies...

"But perhaps something good may come of this.

Perhaps it already has.

I like the document. You may disagree with it, but they have every right to express their opinion. They also want to protect the right of conscience which everyone should support. No one should be compelled or coerced into violating their conscience, right? And shouldn't we be concerned about the poor, the elderly and the unborn? There's a lot to agree with here.

Posted by: Clint | Nov 21, 2009 6:41:31 AM

Not one person here has made even a slight attempt to deny them of their right to express their opinion. We have only expressed our own. And our own says that the document is an indefensible attempt to hijack civil govt. using personal faith.

My conscience tells me I have to sacrifice babies to my god.

More seriously, if your conscience calls upon to you to deny marriage rights to millions of gay Americans, damn right I'm going to object...

Now don't get me wrong. I have plenty of christian friends. I love them, and totally respect their faith. It's just that I have a deeply held conviction that their belief system is unnatural and results from a form of insanity. So when I try to commit them to the mental health ward or support legislation restricting their ability to have children, it isn't because I don't totally respect their beliefs - its just that I think their beliefs (which I totally respect) are unhealthy and insane, and a danger to any offspring they might conceive. I feel it is my duty to not look the other way while they continue to harm themselves with unhealthy behavior - what kind of loving friend would I be to just allow them to wallow in their delusions? .....

I think the statement that gets me most is the one about redefining marriage to please those who are 'powerful and influential.' Any sympathetic words they might have had for teh gayz are erased by that sentiment.

Strange... I don't FEEL powerful or influential... I feel poor as f*** and tired of getting kicked around.

I must have some sort of strange power over middle aged white men that I am not aware of...

Posted by: twilley | Nov 21, 2009 3:56:06 PM

"And shouldn't we be concerned about the poor, the elderly and the unborn? There's a lot to agree with here."

Okay, Clint, let's make sure that we are on the same page here. Everyone should be concerned with the welfare of the poor and elderly, and the prenatal care of the unborn. And, I think that everyone on the planet is concerned about all of those groups of people. What we absolutely ABHOR though is using any of those groups as a political ploy to force one's hate-filled agenda onto others. Which is exactly what the Catholic hierarchy is attempting to do.

Furthermore, when the full intent from the kid fucking priests, and the kid fucker coverupers in the Catholic leadership is to deflect attention away from their kid-fucking ways, and their malicious abuse of their authority in covering up the actions of those kid-fuckers (and by insinuation to attempt to implicate the LGBT community for their illegal abuse of children, and their illicit activities in covering up that abuse), then we have an even bigger problem with the lying liars. That they (also) are now attempting to use bankruptcy to protect their assets from the children that the kid-fuckers abused, and further deflect attention away from that by again attempting to blame others for their depravity, and by "claiming" that they "care" about protecting children, is equally heinous.

So, we all care about the poor, the elderly, and the children that are yet to be born. If the Catholic Church does, then they wouldn't be abusing them, or threatening them as if they were simply a political pawn that is expendable.

Posted by: Dick Mills | Nov 21, 2009 5:00:21 PM

This is such a venomously hateful document and such a blatantly dishonest one. Where could one even start to discuss everything wrong with it?